July 4, 2005
Dolores Beasley
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1753)
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/393-9011)
Lee Tune
University of Maryland, College Park, Md.
(Phone: 301/405-4679)
RELEASE: 05-250
DEEP IMPACT KICKS OFF FOURTH OF JULY WITH DEEP SPACE FIREWORKS
After 172 days and 268 million miles of deep space stalking, Deep
Impact successfully reached out and touched comet Tempel 1. The
collision between the coffee table-sized mpactor and city-sized comet
occurred at 1:52 am EDT.
"What a way to kick off America's Independence Day," said Deep Impact
project manager Rick Grammier of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif. "The challenges of this mission and teamwork that
went into making it a a success, should make all of us very proud."
"This mission is truly a smashing success," said Andy Dantzler,
director of NASA's Solar System Division. "Tomorrow and in the days
ahead we will know a lot more about the origins of our solar system."
Official word of the impact came five minutes after impact when, at
1:57 am EDT, an image from the spacecraft's medium resolution camera
was downlinked to the computer screens of the mission's science team
showed the tell-tale signs of a high-speed impact.
"The image clearly shows a spectacular impact," said Deep Impact
principal investigator Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of
Maryland, College Park. "With this much data we have a long night
ahead of us, but that is what we were hoping for. There is so much
here it is difficult to know where to begin."
The celestial collision and ensuing data collection by the nearby Deep
Impact mothership was the climax of a very active 24 hour period for
the mission which began with impactor release at 2:07 am EDT on July
3. Deep space maneuvers by the flyby, final checkout of both
spacecraft and comet imaging took up most of the next 22 hours. Then,
the impactor got down to its last two hours of life.
"The impactor kicked into its autonomous navigation mode right on
time," said Deep Impact navigator Shyam Bhaskaran, of JPL. "Our
preliminary analysis indicates the three impactor targeting maneuvers
occurred on time at 90, 35 and 12.5 minutes before impact."
At the moment the impactor was vaporizing itself in its 6.3 miles a
second collision with comet Tempel 1, the Deep Impact flyby
spacecraft was monitoring events from nearby, and will continue to do
so for several days.
"The flyby surviving closest approach and shield mode has put the cap
on an outstanding day," said Grammier. "Soon, we will begin the
process of downlinking all the encounter information in one batch and
hand it to the science team."
Deep Impact will provide a glimpse beneath the surface of a comet,
where material from the solar system's formation remains relatively
unchanged. Mission scientists expect the project will answer basic
questions about the formation of the solar system, by offering a
better look at the nature and composition of the frozen celestial
travelers known as comets. The University of Maryland is responsible
for overall Deep Impact mission science, and project management is
handled by JPL. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colo.
For information about Deep Impact on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact
For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html
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